Over the past few months, I’ve shared a few posts about how my team and I are using AI. Whether it’s to uncover customer pain points more effectively, avoid cultural missteps in international deals, or refine our discovery questions with better prompts. The more I experiment, the clearer it becomes: understanding how to use AI isn’t optional anymore.
At first, AI felt like a buzzword storm and I found myself being really curious. I spent more time playing with it than using it as a business toll. But with continued coaching sessions with my team, I’ve realized that not leaning into AI is quickly becoming a liability.
Here’s why I’m committed to learning more, and how I’m approaching it:
1. AI Is Part of the Sales Process
Buyers are more informed and expect us to show up with sharper insights. AI is helping us prepare more thoroughly and respond faster.
For example, we now use AI to:
- Summarize complex call transcripts into customer-impact insights.
- Pressure-test our discovery questions against different buyer personas.
- Spot risks in deals before they surprise us in Q4.
It’s not replacing our work, but making us more effective at it.
2. Cultural Awareness Matters More Than Ever
During my London trip, I saw firsthand how cultural nuance shapes conversations. I’ve started using AI to check for phrases or idioms that might not translate (like “Hail Mary” or “meat and potatoes”) and to understand how feedback is best delivered across regions. AI isn’t giving me a script, but giving me awareness so I can lead and sell more thoughtfully.
3. Prompts Are the New Playbooks
One big shift I’m seeing: the quality of the prompt drives the quality of the output.
We’ve begun building a “prompt library” for our SE team so that everyone has a head start. Some prompts focus on deal risk analysis, others on tailoring discovery questions for specific roles. This practice has quickly become as important as the sales playbooks we’ve used for years. I spend a lot of time thinking through prompts.
Pro tip: If you're a manager, you should be thinking about more ways to help your team with better prompts. Part of our job is to coach our teams up, and helping them think through better prompts is going to be a huge part of what we do, moving forward.
4. The Evolution Is Happening Faster Than We Think
Every month, new capabilities are released that make yesterday’s approach feel outdated. I don’t expect my team to be AI experts, but I do expect us to be curious, experimental, and willing to adapt. The cost of ignoring AI is simply too high.
AI isn’t a passing trend, but a competitive advantage. As leaders and sales professionals, we owe it to ourselves (and our customers) to understand how to use it responsibly and effectively.
What’s one area of your workflow where AI has already made you better?
